Essay
Why I Write Poetry
I try to write poetry. 'Try' in the sense that over the last forty years I have gained some experience in understanding poetry. I am fairly familiar with the clichés of the alley of poetry. I have been familiar with the words, symbols and metaphors. I have grown a tongue that can taste poetry. It is imperative for those who write poetry that they know these matters up close. I have gradually understood when I should write with the heart, and when with the brain. Thus immaturity grows up to maturity. Now I think I am fairly mature enough to understand poetry. Through observation, I have learned what kind of poems can earn popularity and what kind of poems are written to fill the spaces of newspapers.
There's no limit to knowing. Only the grave is the last frontier of knowledge. That is why I always try to learn, from the young as well as from the old. I enrich my knowledge through reading books, newspapers and magazines. The Internet invigorates me and I go through the writings of native and foreign writers. Some of this learning I store in my brain, and some I scrub out. There's a limit to the storage capacity of the brain. Things that I learnt in my juvenile days can't be phased out of my brain. These seem to me a lifelong process. Some unimportant things are deleted automatically.
I have learnt poetry through patient study; so I write poems. I try to understand the techniques of expressing my learning in a new form. If anyone asks me, 'Why write poetry?' I could answer, in conventional manner, 'Poetry is one way of telling the truth, a way often superior to others.' This may qualify as an answer, but is poetry really always a way of arriving at the truth? Does the poetry we read in newspapers tell the truth always? In the era of Aristotle, when there was not much analysis of poetry, it was said that 'poetry uses words in their fuller potential and creates representations that are more complete and meaningful than nature can give us in the bounty.' Now, in these times, if we try to analyze poetry in similar fashion, will we get a 'Complete' and 'Meaningful' form?
The truth is that 'Poetry is not easy'; and, moreover, 'The medium is a compact one, needing great concentration to read, and even more to write'. It could be said to be an important fact for both writers and readers. Readers do not read with concentration; and writers lack concrete concentration too. Focus is the most crucial thing for a poet. Much of contemporary poetry fundamentally lacks breadth and conception. It is pointless blaming only the readers. Readers always want to get something of substance. If they get nothing, if they lose interest in poetry, them? When a poet says about Bengali poetry, "In both Bengals, comparatively more in Bangladesh, the tendency is to gather some cacophonic montage of imagery to create poems that lack resonance" --- then we understand that this poet has properly cultivated the essential being of poetry. With regard to those who gave commentary while neglecting the postmodernist literary critics, "It is an art form, and must therefore do what all art does- represent something of the world, express or evoke emotion, please us by its form, and stands on its own as something autonomous and self-defining", it should be realized that poetry is not a scattered symbolism; it should possess the quality of free-will and self expression.
It is my opinion that, when I try to write poems, emotions, theme, belief and wholeness are combined in them. When I drag down the sky to the earth, I compose a symphony between the sky and the earth. When I illustrate the mood of moonlit night and raindrops, it is not for the sake of incorporating multi-spectral imagery. I rather try to make a sequence in order to construct a story. Poetry is like a tale and after all it should have an end. This tale is like a banyan tree which has branches, leaves spread out at the vast compass outside and roots dipped inside. All these parts together make up a complete tree. Poetry is similar to trees; it should possess branches, leaves and roots. A presentation of poems should be a mixture of poetic essence, emotion and truth. I believe that "poems are not created by recipe, or by pouring contents into a currently acceptable mould. Shape and content interact, in the final product and throughout the creation process, so that the poems will be continually asking what you are writing and why.' When I endeavour to write poems, there is always a question haunting me: what do I write in poems and why? Is my writing pursuing any expression? Does it tell anything? Does it ask anything? If it is doing nothing, then why am I wasting my time adding up these words, 'signifying nothing'?
If anyone goes through from John Milton's (1608-1674) epic "Paradise Lost" to Michael Madhusudan Dutta's (1824-1873) "Meghnadbod Kabbyo", he will experience the heights of poetic expression. The poem that is read by readers again and again will be the perfect poetry. It has been said that popular poetry is perfect poetry (though there are different judgments for figuring out the popularity of prose). In past centuries, it was seen that readers accepted those kinds of poems which possess a concrete emotion, a desired question and an obtained answer. There were scattered themes but those were matched up to a certain point. Readers may argue with me as I go through the following examples. Syed Ali Ahsan's (1920-2002) "Amar Purbo Bangla", Abu Zafar Obaidullah's (1934-2003) "Ami Kingbodontir Kotha Bolchi", Shamsur Rahman's (1929-2006) "Tomake Powar Jonno Hey Sadhinota", Al Mahmud's (1936) "Sonali Kabin", Nirmolendu Goon's (1942) "Huliya", Shahid Quadri's (1943) "Tomake Ovibadon, Priyotoma"all of these are full of multidimensional themes, symbols and metaphors. The poets journeyed through the whole surface to reach their readers and make them surf across their poetry. For that reason, those poems are frequently read by readers. Jibananondo Das's "Bonolota Sen" is also a readers' favorite for this reason, isn't it?
Poetry is the workshop of language, the most acute and comprehensive way we have of expressing ourselves. After this there is not much to say about the language of poetry. In fact there are many definitions, explanations and analyses about the language of poetry among different nations, languages and countries. But poetry is definitely beyond any definition.
I try to write a complete poem comprised of emotions, conflict, truth, symbols, similes, faith and beliefs, and what happens or could have happened. I nurture them all in my world of poetry. While giving form to my poem, I keep on editing and modifying till I feel satisfied that it is finally something worth reading and generates an ease to perceive. I organize and reorganize the words in different rhymes and rhythms so that it becomes reader friendly. My poetry is my medium to communicate with my readers. I believe 'poetry is a lot of things to a lot of people'. I try to write poems jubilantly.
Shahabuddin Nagari writes essays and composes poetry. E-mail : snagari55@gmail.com .
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